The problem with GMO foods is that the seeds are modified to resist the effects of the weed killers and allow for more spraying to kill weeds and not crops. So, more of the weed killer gets into the food chain. I am sure that there are probably some good effects as well, but maybe Monsanto should take its engineered seeds to the countries where the people want to eat them.

I don’t think that we know all the detrimental effects of the various products that we spray onto our crops, our lawns and public areas, like golf courses. We have a cancer pocket (women’s cancer) in our county that has been linked to the chemicals from the raspberry farms that got into the water table. My mother-in-law gave up golf after all three of her golf partners died of brain tumors.

Sadly Larry I am not html proficient but I have indeed read several studies.
One was recently posted on another recent GMO thread regarding bT and it’s effects on human kidneys. Our overall health is greatly due to the health of our gut bacteria, how putting spliced viruses and pesticide producing crops in that mix could be healthy is beyond me.

Bt has been used for years as a naturally-derived pesticide; the big difference here is that Monsantos gene-splicing wizards made corn and other food-bearing plants grow the Bt internally. When its used in organic agriculture you can just wash the Bt off with water; you cant do that when its inside ever cell of the corn youre eating.

...A new study shows that low doses of Bt biopesticide CryA1b as well as the glyphosate herbicide, Roundup, kill human kidney cells. The Bt biopesticide conferring insect resistance and the glyphosate tolerance trait tied to the use of glyphosate herbicides account for almost all the GM crops grown worldwide.

These studies, along with the observation that Bt protein is present in the blood of pregnant women and their babie

Don Huber, emeritus professor of plant pathologiy at Purdue University, gave a two-and-a-half hour indictment of glyphosate herbicide and genetically modified crops at the Acres USA conference in December.

Dr. Huber detailed the negative impacts of glyphosate and GM crops on plants, soils, and the environment and animal and human health. He called glyphosate the most abused chemical in the history of agriculture and described GM crops as a failed system.

Glyphosates negative impacts on plants

Huber first detailed the negative impacts of glyphosate on crops, soils, and the environment based on papers that he and other scientists, such as Robert Kremer, a microbiologist with the USDAs Agricultural Research Service, have published.

Huber said glyphosate makes plants more susceptible to diseases, increases the virulence of soil-borne disease organisms, and immobilizes plant nutrients such as manganese. It is also toxic to beneficial soil organisms and accumulates in the soil. There are more than 40 plant diseases reported with use of glyphosate, including many fungal diseases such as fusarium.

There has been a 500% increase in fusarium and huge increases in sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soybeans, Huber said.

He showed slides of Roundup Ready GM soybean fields in Iowa and Illinois affected by SDS. The plants were brown while adjacent fields of non-GMO soybean plants not treated with glyphosate were healthy and green.

Huber referred to a published paper showing significant reductions of minerals in RR soybeans treated with glyphosate: 26% less calcium, 13% less magnesium, 49% less iron, and 45% less manganese.

Another slide demonstrated how, contrary to claims, glyphosate doesnt degrade in the soil: plants growing in a field that had been treated with glyphosate for 10 years were stunted and yellow while plants growing in a field treated with glyphosate for a year were taller and green.

Other problems Huber highlighted included bubble kernels on corn cobs that received a late application of glyphosate, damage to winter wheat from residual glyphosate in the soil, poorer growth of russet potatoes resulting from soils treated with glyphosate, and reduced yields in Roundup Ready corn.

Negative impacts on animals

Huber then detailed a litany of feed and food concerns about the effects of glyphosate on animals and human health.

He referred to a 2002 statement from the US Cattlemens Association to the US Congress describing devastating problems with pregnant cows and calves and that high numbers of fetuses are aborting for no apparent reason.

Last year, Huber caused a stir when he wrote a letter to US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack warning him about a pathogen new to science that has been linked to glyphosate and Roundup Ready crops. Huber said the pathogen, which he describes as a microfungus, is linked to illness and reproductive problems in animals and poses threats to human health.

Since writing the letter, Huber has received many letters and emails from veterinarians reporting problems with animals fed GM feed. A veterinarian in Michigan wrote him about a sow (hog) herd that has had an increasing number of deaths and reproductive problems. The cause is unknown, and the vet wonders if it is the pathogen Huber identified. Similar reproductive problems have been reported in cows. Last November Hoards Dairyman reported that cows are losing up to 20% of pregnancies.

The introduction of GM crops, Huber said, was a betrayal of the public trust by a failure to address potential risks. The irresponsible and premature widespread use is based on flawed and unsound scientific assumptions.

Huber said glyphosate and GM crops are likely harming human health. He cited significant increases in inflammatory bowel syndrome, Crohns disease, and certain types of cancers. Other diseases such as food allergies, autism, endometriosis, Alzheimers, and Parkinsons may also be linked to glyphosate and GM crops, he said.

In conclusion Huber said that our basic responsibility in agriculture is providing safe and nutritious food. Instead, with current GMO-based agricultural practices, we are willing to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations based on failed promises and flawed science just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.

The article also points out...we may getting more exposure than realized...long term daily exposure is uncertain

... And who's to say what GMOs will do -- now or in generations -- inside our bodies as we consume them on a greater scale and they become a part of the bacteria in our digestive tracts?

With more and more U.S. foods being grown,manufactured and imported from places like South America and Eastern Europe -- the precise areas outside the U.S. where Monsanto's biotech seeds are gaining their greatest foothold,food imports are quickly becoming a recipe for disaster. Remember,too,much of the GM crop grown around the world is used for livestock feed,so there's more than one way for GMOs to be ingested in your diet,such as from meat and dairy products

Where do you get this view that we are health nuts? Where does type 2 diabetes tie into this except in your particular thought process?
In this Democratic republic we are supposed to be privy to the pursuit of life , liberty and happiness. If it makes others happy not to be forced to eat GMO,
What is your issue?
Do you suddenly have the right to shove it down our throats because you think it’s cool?
You call us all (not you personally) Luddites?

Because if you go with your feelings, you'll believe the lie that GMO's are harmless. This is not a leftist issue. It has to do with the safety of our food supply. Like I said, do some research and get back with me. I dare you.

A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings, wrote Huber in the letter, which is quoted here with his permission. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn  suggesting a link with the RR gene, or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!

That's because you don't understand what GMO's are. Monsanto would have you believe that we have been genetically modifying organisms for years through selective breeding. Genetic engineering uses the genes from two dissimilar species that could never mate to make a creature that is indeed NEW to science.

I dont understand why they upset the lefty idiots so much.Why do they upset you so much?

Not being a lefty idiot myself, I can't respond to your first statement. My concerns are similar to Joel Salatin's who nowhere near being a lefty idiot. If you would do some honest research you might come share my concern's as well.

It is kind of funny to debate with leftists...unfortunately, Greenpeace has infiltrated Free Republic for a very long time....it is pretty useless to argue science and facts with the Greenpeace/leftists.

I learned long ago that trying to discuss science and biology facts with Greenpeace-types is pretty useless. Greenpeace just argues emotions and makes up research papers that are rarely, if never peer-reviewed, and when they are reviewed, the are usually laughed out of town.

I wont believe the lefty idiots on this or any other issue. Sorry to hear you do.

I believe what I've found out through researching the subject on my own. Are you really too lazy to do the same or are you just afraid you'll have to change your opinion? Go read this: "GMO Giant Monsanto Joins Big Business Coalition for UN Agenda 21"

Most people with the choice of you and your family starving to death or eating some modified foodstuff will opt to not starve to death, eating the foodstuff. That is the choice many in the world have. I guess one could argue that if they starved to death that has its advantages for “mother earth”.

You are pretty funny. Anytime one is on the same side of Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi, along with Greenpeace, The Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, as you are, you don't have to do much research to do figure out this is a far leftist position.. I suggest you would have a lot more support on the far leftie websites like move.on . I think FR is generous in letting the Greenpeace folks post on this site.

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